+ Strategy

10 March 2012

Peter Brown Architects has joined with BCworkshop to help DISD and Get Healthy Dallas envision the new Entrepreneurial Culinary Arts Program at Lincoln High School in Dallas. During a recent brainstorming session, we were wildly impressed with students at Lincoln and Pearl C Anderson Middle School. The two schools linked into one workshop via DISD's new Skype connection (perhaps the first cross-school collaborative e-meeting in the school district).

During the workshop, students described a dynamic program that builds on health and nutrition, fosters teamwork, invites neighbors into the school, takes meals to home-bound and homeless, and works hand-in-hand with other strengths within the school -- featuring dining with live music, preparing game-day meals for athletes, and working with the print, radio, TV, and social media programs at the school to spread the excitement.

The school is a strategic component of the Grow South plan recently announced by Dallas mayor Mike Rawlings. With the mayor’s vision of strengthening schools and strengthening communities, and filled with students like those who wowed the Entrepreneurial Culinary Arts workshop, Lincoln High School will be one to watch.

23 September 2011

Peter Brown Architects recently facilitated a design planning workshop at Avenues World School. The New York campus of Avenues World School is located in Manhattan's Chelsea Neighborhood.

The workshop, designed to open a diaglog between educators and designers, created a forum for leading educators to talk about what they do and how they envision students, families, and the community using the facility. The discussion was organized into three broad categories.

Planning for 21st Century Students

Integrating Technology into the Design of the School

Furniture and Learning Spaces

Facinating conversations produced ideas that bridge learning and environment. Educators talked about the nature of a library, referencing Louis Kahn's Exeter Library, the nature of student discussions around Harkness Tables, the purpose of meeting together in a digital world, understanding what can only happen when people meet together face to face, integrating collaborative practices, learning from multiple sources, the effects of cultural immersion on learning spaces, and the opportunities of being locatied New Yorks' leading community of artists.

The dialog generated a set of guiding priciples on understanding furniture as the interface between the building and curriculum.

Ideas from the workshop sessions with renowned and talented thinkers form a basis for the furniture selection process at Avenues and will continue resonate in the work around our design studio.

The Avenues NYC campus is the first in a network of locations in the world's leading cities, read more at Avenues World School: What is Avenues?

Begin by thinking Avenues Beijing, Avenues London, Avenues São Paulo, Avenues Mumbai. Think of Avenues as one international school with 20 or more campuses. It will not be a collection of 20 different schools all pursuing different educational strategies, but rather one highly-integrated “learning community,” connected and supported by a common vision, a shared curriculum, collective professional development of its faculty, the wonders of modern technology and a highly-talented headquarters team located in New York City.

06 March 2011

One of the greatest experiences of working with schools is having a front row seat in seeing how children create when given open ended possibilities. I've been following Wesley Prep in Dallas for over six years now, and we've been working together over the last year in transforming their 40 year old buildings into 21st century learning environments for a hands-on, child centered, project-based academic program. One play area for the 4th, 5th, and 6th graders is across campus over a footbridge in a clearing next to a natural creek. Students have dubbed this clearing "The Bamboo Forest"

The Bamboo Forest is an open ended play space. Here students gather bamboo, create villages, societies, barter systems, spaces, and ornament. Traditions are passed year-by-year from one group to the next, organically shifting as new students come and older students graduate.

A couple of weeks ago, after a project meeting, I went to the Bamboo Forest to see this year's creations. And was in awe of the complexity and sophistication of the creations.

The clearing by the creek was a village, populated with a half-dozen bamboo structures, each with its own structural concept, each the creation of a team of builders (space builders, town builders, idea builders). One in particular stood out--a large structure that began as a defined space under the canopy of four mature trees. The tree trunks were linked together by bamboo walls, and bamboo ceilings further defined the spaces inside the structure. Stepping inside, the space was subdivided into four rooms: I imagined a foyer, ante room, and two private areas. The spaces were organic, like a transparent Richard Serra sculpture.

Then another layer of information had been added. Some walls had rails with pine cones dotting the structure, and others were woven with found materials: shimmering tape from a cassette reel, colorful plastic bags, ribbons and twine.

It's really informative to see HOW children create when given the opportunity to think outside of traditional boundaries. So often creative work in schools is defined by a 18" x 24" sheet of paper, a 4' x 6' bulletin board, or a letter sized ruled pad. Here students have a clearing, a forest with bamboo, and with the purity of a bird building a nest and the elegance of a spider spinning a web, the thinkers at Wesley Prep navigate NEW and BIG frontiers. With three years of the Bamboo Forest experience, I'll be interested in seeing what frontiers will challenge and excite the graduates of Wesley Prep.